Quotes About Sales

The most common strategic error that salespeople make in this phase of the sale is that they don't try to uncover the customer's guidelines, or criteria, for making the decision.

As the Exxon seller said afterward, "Unless you've an un-usually good price, you've got to have a friend in the account if you want to influence a purchasing agent. And the best friend is the person who's having the most problems with your competitor.

The sales clerk stood up, and I saw she was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a dachshund on it and the words "I Know a little German" on the back. Her name tag read "Paula.

In 2011, domestic sales of foreign affiliates in China reached RMB15 trillion.42

At this time touring for most bands was still seen primarily as a way of promoting records to boost album sales, with the odd chance to get some income from the larger venues.

By '82 we were grossing a quarter of a million dollars every night in merchandise. Every . . . single . . . night.

a measure of "declining sales" certainly points to a problem, but "revenue churn"—specifically, how many customers canceled contracts—tells management where to intervene.

You can't lose in sales if you remember that you're not selling; you're solving problems.

everyone is now in the business of relentless self-promotion—presenting themselves, explaining themselves, defending themselves, selling themselves or sharing their inner thoughts and emotions as never before in human history.

The music business is like any other business, y'know? When sales are going well, everything's hunky-f**king-dory. But the second something goes wrong, it's all blood and law-suits.

Next, divide free cash flow by sales (or revenues), which tells you what proportion of each dollar in revenue the firm is able to convert into excess profits. If a firm's free cash flow as a percentage of sales is around 5 percent or better, you've found a cash machine—as of mid-2003, only one-half of the S&P 500 pass this test. Strong free cash flow is an excellent sign that a firm has an economic moat.

This isn't quite chemical castration, but it will bring your life into balance," she said, and she was off on her sales pitch as if the phrase "chemical castration" was a common concept—and something one might consider doing to one's husband. And she looked like such a nice, normal person.

Like casino employees talking about an especially profligate gambler, the sales reps referred to these doctors as "whales.

The company literally could not make OxyContin fast enough to sell it.

Your priority is to sell, sell, sell OxyContin.

Purdue also explicitly instructed sales reps to target family physicians who were likely to be naive about opioids, "opioid naive"—doctors who had little experience prescribing this kind of medication. To

Within four years of the launch celebration at the Wigwam in Arizona, OxyContin hit $1 billion in sales, surpassing the quintessential blockbuster drug of that era, Viagra.

People microwaved the pills, baked them in the oven, stuck them in the freezer, soaked them in all manner of solvents. But if Purdue's narrow objective was to prevent people from breaking down the pills, then this new coating seemed to work. In fact, there were telling indications, almost immediately, in Purdue's own sales data, which suggested that some habitual OxyContin users were frustrated by the tamperproof pills.

It was now in the grip of a full-blown opioid epidemic. Millions of Americans had become addicted to OxyContin and other opioids, whether they had done so through recreational abuse or under a doctor's care. Indeed, whatever the Sacklers might have wanted to tell themselves about their own intentions and the nature of the business they were in, this large population of addicted people was part of the reason that Purdue's sales were still so strong. The numbers didn't lie.

We had several Startenders who could not only sell ice to Eskimos, but also convince them to pick up snowmaking machines and air-conditioners, not to mention bathing suits and outdoor swimming pools.

Good salespeople use questions to learn something about their buyers.

Great salespeople use questions to help buyers learn something about themselves.

One of the key reasons that salespeople don't ask better questions is because they lack a plan.

I have learned through years of sales and consulting that there are two types of relationships: superficial and substantive.